Indigenous Land Rights Could Halt Australia’s Largest Coal Mining Project*

Indigenous Land Rights Could Halt Australia’s Largest Coal Mining Project*

Environmental concerns over the Adani mining project stem from the threat to the survival of both sacred springs and to maintaining the tradition of songlines – ancestral lines connecting across the land to protect the Earth.

By Maxine Newlands

Indigenous elders from the Wangan and Jagalingou (W&J) people have put mining company Adani – and Australia’s governments – on notice to quit the Carmichael mine project over native title claims.

Wangan and Jangalingou Traditional Owners this week took a step closer to filing federal court papers challenging a document Adani “is trying to pass off as an Indigenous Land Use Agreement with our people” but which is “illegitimate” according to W&J Traditional Owner Council, Mr. Adrian Burragubba. The claim is over access to land near the mining town of Clermont in Central Queensland, 600 miles north of Brisbane.

The move follows the landmark ‘McGlade’ court ruling in Western Australia, earlier this month. The “McGlade” ruling states that, unless all peoples named on any native title claim – a Registered Native Title Claimants (RNTC) document – agree to lease the land, then no mining can go ahead.

In the W & J case, 40% (five out of 12) of those named on the RNTC refuse to support the Indigenous Land Use Agreement over fears for the ecosystem and the loss of cultural heritage.

Environmental concerns over this project stem from the threat to the survival of sacred springs and to the tradition of maintaining songlines – ancestral lines connecting across the land to protect the Earth. With 12 billion litres of water, (the equivalent to 400 Olympic size pools) needed for the mine, there’s unease over the future security of the Carmichael River and sacred Doongmabulla Springs. The springs are both central to the indigenous belief of dreamtime and the creation story and are an important ecosystem to the region.

What is native title?

Australia’s Native Title Act (1993) ensures that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders are entitled to land taken from clans after the arrival of Europeans in the 18th Century. Communities enter into an Indigenous Land Use Agreement (ILUA) with mining companies over the use of traditional land rights.

ILUA is a voluntary agreement between a native title group and others over the suitable use of land and waters. ILUAs cover topics ranging from mining, future development, economic benefits including employment and compensation, preservation of cultural heritage and the safeguarding of native title rights, along with the rights of other people.

In 2004, Wangan and Jagalingou Peoples lodged a native title claim with the Registered Native Title Claimants (RNTC) for land they possess. The claim includes the right and interest to hunt, fish, camp, access natural resources, conduct traditional ceremonies, protect customs and traditions of the land, educate on the lands’ physical and spiritual attributes, and to be buried as native title holders on that land.

W&J youth leader and Council spokesperson, Murrawah Johnson, says: “We have maintained all along that Adani does not have the consent of the rightful Traditional Owners. Our Traditional Owners group have rejected an ILUA with Adani three times. We will defeat Adani’s fake ILUA and continue to fight for our land and culture until the company and Governments respect our rights and abandon this disastrous proposal”.

Adani reject claims over jobs and lack of indigenous support

Where green groups have failed in the courts, the indigenous peoples hope for success with a network of support and a different set of tools.

“Environmentalists and environmental campaigns have ways to take legal action to prevent the mines. I’m not saying for certain that we are going to win, but we’ve got a different set of tools we get to use” a W&J Council advisor told the Ecologist.

These tools include international support from other first nations and indigenous groups and the United Nations Special Rapporteur, Victoria Lucia Tauli-Corpuz. The Tauli-Corpuz report (2016) recommends that Australia – a supporter of the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People’s (UNDRIP, 2009) – upholds Article 32, granting traditional owners legal recourse to contest their land being used without their free, prior and informed consent.

W & J is also working with the Athabasca Chipewyan battling the tar sands in Alberta; the Achuar Indians fighting oil and gas in the Amazon and the Ogoni and Ijaw’s fight against Shell in the Niger Delta, and plan to take this campaign global – a W&J Council advisor says

“we already have international connections and support. Our intention is to widen this campaign, the cause and promote it globally”.

Adani’s Response

Adani in conjunction with the Bowen Basin Mining Company (BBMC) recently held a series of roadshows in the region for those seeking jobs and supply contracts. Nearly 1,300 regional business owners and suppliers met key project team members from both Adani and the mine construction and operations contractor, Downer Group. BBMC stated that “The supplier briefings were all extremely well-attended, with exceptional support from local industry associations, indigenous communities, councils and peak economic development bodies”, adding that “there was also a strong show of support for the Carmichael project from the Wangan & Jagalingou Traditional Owner groups, as well as other Indigenous groups and businesses in all locations”.

The roadshow events began with an indigenous supplier briefing, with Indigenous groups singled out as “a large focus of the mine, rail and port projects…the key to effective supplier proposals is indigenous involvement, as indigenous training and jobs, along with regional supply, are main priorities for project procurement”.

Some members of W&J are challenging the focus on indigenous jobs: “The jobs and benefits to indigenous peoples argument is a sham. It’s the usual package to clear the regulatory hurdles around native title” warned a W&J Council advisor.

Whilst Adani continues to work with indigenous groups over native title claims, green groups have been accused of underhand illegal tactics that could prevent jobs for the community.

Queensland Resource Council (QRC) has accused green groups of threatening behavior, saying: ” While we believe it is a democratic right to protest, using dishonest and underhanded tactics in a bid to cheat Queenslanders out of jobs, is going too far. We can only hope that no-one has been put in danger, or hurt, as a result of these desperate tactics, which had the potential to bring these groups into personal direct conflict with regional Queensland business people in attendance” said a company statement.

Undeterred, environmental activists groups are looking to work with the W & J and planning to hold the largest protest campaign the country has witnessed in the coming months. The Galilee Blockade campaigns will wait and see if W & J request support, and will continue to plan large scale direct actions and blockades.

Australian Government’s response is to bypass the law

In a week where Australian Treasurer Scott Morrison, Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce and Minister for Energy and the Environment, Josh Frydenberg passed around the parliamentary chamber a large lump of coal in support of the fossil fuel industry, both the Federal and Queensland governments are looking at ways to push through the project as a matter of national critical infrastructure development.

Australia’s pro-mining Attorney General George Brandis wants to rush through new legislation allowing the Adani mine and the remaining 40 other mining projects in Queensland all affected by the McGlade ruling to go ahead.

Any new legislation would be a reversal of current policy to a 2010 ruling (Bygraves decision) that stated that as long as a majority decision was made by a native title claimant group then all deals can go ahead.

Leading Aboriginal rights advocate, a primary W&J Traditional Owner and Council, Adrian Burragubba, says: “Our fight is far from over. Anyone who wants to bankroll Adani, and the Queensland and Commonwealth Governments, is now on notice that we will not stand by if attempts are made, in response to the Noongar decision, to put our rights and interests, and our laws and customs, on the chopping block for the mining lobby,”.

Wangan and Jangalingou Traditional Owners are currently awaiting for Adani’s official response before deciding whether to go to court.

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Quote…

Peace be upon you and peace be upon us.
May You be in peace and may we be in peace.
Peace be upon those who returned the greeting and even upon those who did not.
Peace, in the name of the lord of peace, the lord of mankind, the god of eternity.
Peace in which we prospered.
Peace mixed with the earth of this country.
Peace in which we no longer live.
Peace which no longer lives in us.
Peace we keep an eye on while it packs its bags.
To abandon our lands, little by little.
And it is replaced by surrender and submission to an islamisation in which there is no islam.
As if the islam of our grandparents no longer had anything to do with us.
Do you know why peace is abandoning us?
Do you know why darkness is all around us?
To put it simply, because we are a society that fears.
We are a society afraid of difference.
My words will not please some of you, or most of you, or all of you - i know.
But i will say them because i refuse to be one of the herd.
We are a society which refuses to admit that it is a society that lives in ignorance.
We are a society that shots with all audacity and pretends that it carries a different message.
We are a society that loves to claim superiority without having a valid reason.
And pretends that it is an educated society. It is sickening!
Among us, the acceptance of difference is nothing but a cover.
The difference in colour does us harm.
The difference in shape does us harm.
The difference in thinking does us harm.
The difference in religion does us harm.
Even the difference in gender does us harm.
That is why we try to kill any difference in our midst.
We have turned into a lethal poison for each other.
We are a society more stupid than stupidity itself.
Yes, we are a society more stupid that stupidity itself.
We fight over silly things, over delusions, over superstitions
While always refusing to look into the root of the problem.
And none of us is innocent of that. No!
No citizens nor politicians.
No those who find comfort in silence.
Nor those who pretend to be saints.
Nor those who follow the west blindly.
Nor those who pretend to go back to the glory of the caliphate and the slave markets.
And to the amputation of the limbs of those who differ.
Today, let us try to look inside ourselves
Inside the depth of our souls.
Let us try to embrace our souls.
Let us try to embrace our differences with our souls.
Here i am, before you, with my colour, with my hair, with my poetry, with my peculiarities, with my ideas.
I am not afraid of you.
I don’t fear that you’re different from me because i am part of you and you are part of me.
Let us create art. Let us grasp the dream.
So we can erect a culture without stupidity,
So our sophistication becomes the best of caliphates.
Let us melt away the traditions, the classes, the types, the ideas, the colours and the religions.
So we see nothing except the human being.

Dance of the Heart

Rejuvenate your Life with Aloe Vera

The pain you create now is always some form of non acceptance, some form of unconscious resistance to what is.

On the level of thought, the resistance is some form of judgement.

On the emotional level, it is some form of negativity.

The intensity of the pain depends on the degree of resistance to the present moment , and this in turn depends on how strongly you are identified with your mind.

The mind always seeks to deny the Now and to escape from it.

In other words, the more you are identified with your mind, the more you suffer.
Or you may put it like this the more you are able to honour and accept the Now,the more you are free of pain, of suffering and free of egoic mind.

Why does the mind habitually deny or resist the NOW?

Because it cannot function and remain in control without time,which is past and future,so it perceives the timeless Now as threatening.

Time and mind are infact inseparable .

Sunday Wire

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Living on the streets cuts an average of 25 years from a person's life and degrades the quality of life for everyone. Another feature of the homeless population in San Francisco is that many of these people are simply too ill to care for themselves. We're almost half a century into the failure of the social experiment that closed the State Hospitals and no closer to ending the experiment now than when our media first noticed the experiment had failed in the 1980's.

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From Chatty on One Corrupt President Ousted*
What do you know, a democratic breath of fresh air SOMEWHERE in the world...amazing. I'm glad the people's voices were heard and the police did their jobs. Fantastic, and I hope South Korea can heal from this and get good leadership.

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From Joann on One Corrupt President Ousted*

Such a sorry business, sorry for the South Korean people, and sorry for former President Park Geun-hye (so foolish and weak). But I am very glad truth was revealed, and we may hope for fair punishment, and perhaps rehabilitation, involving prison time. This needs to become a world-wide trend.

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From Necltr on World Bank Declares itself Above the Law*
World Bank, World Loan Shark, to use selected politicians and troops to take over every nation and all of humanity

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From TheChattyIntrovert on India’s Cashless Villages not Really There Yet, But the Nightmare Has Begun*

I'm too paranoid to believe in a cashless society myself--too much identity theft here in the states, and too damned easy when everything's done electronically.

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From Mark on Jury Refuses to Convict Activist for Shutting Down Pipeline*

This is why the ruling elite have nearly eliminated jury trials.
If you didn’t know that your democratic rights to trials by jury had been eliminated for everything but felony charges, see http://americanjurypower.org/home/no_right.php and don’t miss the supreme court case at the link in that article in which 5 so-called conservative, strict constructionist justices found an invisible word in 2 clauses in that quaint old constitution in the ruling elite’s latest effort to convert a justice system designed to be controlled by the people into one controlled by the ruling elite.

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From N on Scientists Find Fluoride Causes Hypothyroidism Leading To Depression, Weight Gain, and Worse…*
For ambitious global tyrants, fluoridation is part of a win-win-win-... program; for at least 6.5 billion people it is lose-lose-lose... Lose mental capacity of ourselves and children, lose length of life, lose, free will ... For the Globalists, win a servile, depopulated humanity with no ability to know what is happening to them, let alone a capacity to solve their problems.

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From M… on New Report Exposes Rockefeller Dynasty’s Role in “Climate” Scam*
John D., Sr. had a brother, William Avery, with whom he founded Standard Oil and worked until William's death. The families still work cooperatively, like the Rothschilds, but in a smaller way. When you think of petroleum and banking in this country, think Rockefeller. Their man Nixon took us off the gold standard and prevented the silver certificate, replacing precious metals with the petrodollar. Think of global power possibilities with a monopoly of that liquid black gold, especially when accompanied with the fiction of supply limitation held for many decades.

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From Neben on The Taino of the Caribbean: the People Who Do Not Exist

I am Taino and Caiqueto, living in Georgia. We must unite here in the continental U.S.

My family are indigenous to "Hispaniola", "Puerto Rico", Aruba and Curacao. I have family members in Florida, New York, and other states.

We do and have always existed. These settlers and colonists need to be told our lives matter.

Even if our African brothers and sisters were brought here, or even travelled here on their own (many did), they became us. Not we became them. When you immigrate you assume the tribal identities and customs of the host nation. These colonialists know this so they lie and say our people no longer exist, and/or say that only mixed people and descendants of black slaves exist in the Caribbean. These are all lies. They have brainwashed people into voiding our birthright and inheritance!!!!

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From Chief Pedro Guanikeyu Torres on The Taino of the Caribbean: the People Who Do Not Exist

I find this blog article most interesting and it made me smile at the same time to see an old letter that my tribal council and I had published in Puerto Rico some 46 years ago and addressed to the Puerto Rican people as it make me feel really old today at 65 year of age today. Respectfully yours, Chief Pedro Guanikeyu Torres, Jatibonicu Taino People of Boriken (Puerto Rico) Tribal Government of the Jatibonicu Taino People of Puerto Rico

Moral Tales

“To be in ‘Islam’ is to be in that state of willingness to surrender, to let go of anything. It is the beginning of the awakening of intelligence . If you’re willing to let go of everything, whatever anxieties, fears, expectations , or desires you have, then your energy is available. Your intelligence sharper. Your actions more successful because you can see whether they relate or not.” – Sheikh Fadhlalla Haeri

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Community Notice Board

The topocentric New Moon Conjunction for the lunar month of Sha'aban will occur on Wednesday, the 26th of March 2017, at 22:32 AEST (10:32pm Sydney time).

The correct date to observe the crescent of Sha'aban is upon sunset of Thursday, the 27th of April 2017.

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{Surely they who divided their religion into parts and became sects, you have no concern with them; their affair is only with Allah, then He will inform them of what they did” – An.Anam 6:159).